


still caught in yesterday's wake

by ilum



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hurt/Comfort, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:33:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22610104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilum/pseuds/ilum
Summary: Her heart is heavy with fear—fear that one day she will no longer be able to recall the shape of Ben’s face, or the timbre of his voice, or the exact color of his eyes; that her memory of him will fade until she is left with nothing but the pain of his absence, like some phantom limb that aches and aches and aches, relentlessly.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39
Collections: For one is both and both are one in love: The Reylo Fanfiction Anthology's Valentine's Day Exchange





	still caught in yesterday's wake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Apricot (Paradisi)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paradisi/gifts).



> Dear giftee, I adored your prompts, and I can only hope I managed to do them justice, especially since this is my first forray into writing Reylo fic. (:
> 
> This is mostly based on Prompt 3: (Post TROS) Rey searches for a way to contact the ghost of Ben Solo, but can't reach him. She demands Luke/Leia/someone shows her how, but it doesn't work because...(Because he wanted to spare her the pain of seeing him? Something's preventing it? He's alive??? You decide.), with bits of Prompt 1 and 5 blended in there. 
> 
> Title from 'Yesterday's Wake' by Son Lux.

The months following the Battle of Exegol are difficult, once the initial euphoria tapers off. 

  
  


Attempting to adjust to a world where the First Order was no longer a viable threat is proving to be more challenging than anticipated. Everyone had fought for freedom, believing in the concept, but not many really knew, or perhaps remembered, what it entails. So many of them have dedicated their lives to opposing the First Order. For years, that had been their sole goal. Now that the war is over, triumph slowly begins to way to uncertainty as former rebels start to re-evaluate their purpose. After all, what is the point of having a Resistance when there is nothing to resist against?

  
  


It’s not _all_ bad, of course—since the war has ended, she has witnessed countless families reunions, the liberation of several planets, and many war criminals brought to justice. In some semblance of a democratic vote, it has been decided that the headquarters of the Republic should be re-established on Coruscant once again—for the time being, at least. There are even plans to erect a memorial hall to commemorate all those who gave their lives restore peace in the galaxy. Rey doesn’t ask if they plan to include Ben Solo among the fallen; she already knows the answer.

  
  


There’s more: Finn and Jannah are working on developing a programme to break the Stormtroopers’ conditioning and help them assimilating back into society; Poe has been excelling in his role as a General, and is currently overseeing the Resistance’s move from Ajan Kloss to Coruscant. Rose, meanwhile, has the makings of a senator, with her determination to create a better, more just galaxy, starting with Cantonica. 

  
  


_That’s_ what makes it worth it. That’s what helps Rey believe that they’re really making a difference, that this is the way forward. She’s just not sure what that means for her.

  
  


Truthfully, she never imagined that victory could taste so bitter. Sharing in her friends’ success brings her pride, but not joy, and certainly not fulfilment, the way she thought it would.

  
  


It’s because she’s grieving. She’s _still_ grieving. 

  
  


Rey emerges out of her hut as the sun begins to dip beneath the horizon, casting a warm orange glow over vast plains of yellowed grass. The landscape is sparsely decorated with large rock formations, and several abandoned radio towers. Out beyond the horizon, she can see the silhouette of the city looming in the distance, set against the backdrop of a burning sky.

  
  


Rey moves through the tall grass, feeling it brush against her ankles, until she reaches a large, steady-looking rock with a relatively flat surface, and perches on it.

  
  


The dying sunlight burns against the back of Rey’s eyelids even as her eyes flutter shut. She assumes the now-familiar meditating position, crossing her legs and straightening her spine. A part of her knows she will always lack the patience, the _control_ necessary to master the art of meditation, but she has greatly improved since that first attempt at Ahch-To, under Luke’s guidance.

  
  


And so Rey calms her breathing, slows her heartbeat, and reaches out with Force.

  
  


“Be with me,” she chants, just as passionately as she has every day since she made planetfall on Lothal. “Be with me.”

  
  


Rey may not be very patient, but she _is_ persistent. “Be with me.”

  
  


There’s a choir of voices in her head, the hushed tones all melting into one another, disjointed and other as she tries to pick out the one she’s searching for. Her temples throb with the effort. She’s vaguely aware of the wind blowing through the grassy fields around her.

  
  


“Be with me.” There’s a desperate edge to her tone now. She hates that she sounds like she’s going to cry. That won’t do.

  
  


“Be with me. Ben, please, be with me, I need you to be—I _need_ you—”

  
  


Her breath hitches as her eyes fly open. A Loth-cat scurries away as Rey growls, her frustration sending tremors through the Force.

  
  


Defeated, she walks back to her hut. The Jedi texts are scattered on a makeshift table, just as she’d left them. Around them lay several pieces of her dismantled staff, a remnant of her life on Jakku. 

  
  


Rey had conceived the idea of a saberstaff not long after the Exegol. She’d envisioned it so clearly—a hybrid weapon that would symbolize the balance between the light and dark, between scholarship and combat. Turns out constructing it isn’t as straightforward as she had imagined.

  
  


Perhaps it would be easier if she could just concentrate on the task at hand. Selfishly, she’d thought the construction of a lightsaber would provide a welcome distraction from the ache in her sternum.

  
  


But still she can’t sleep, hasn’t been able to rest in earnest since Exegol.

  
  


Every night, the same scene plays out behind her eyelids. She sees the light fading from Ben’s eyes, feels his grip on her hand growing disconcertingly slack, and wakes up chilled to the bone.

  
  


Her heart is heavy with fear—fear that one day she will no longer be able to recall the shape of Ben’s face, or the timbre of his voice, or the exact color of his eyes; that her memory of him will fade until she is left with nothing but the pain of his absence, like some phantom limb that aches and aches and aches, relentlessly.

  
  


And every afternoon she calls for him, begs him to hear her, only to be met with deafening silence on his part. 

  
  


Rey remembers rebelling against the bond, attempting to shut Ben out, all of his emotions and thoughts and memories which had been so overwhelming at the time. And now… now she wants nothing more than to feel his presence once again.

  
  


But he had promised her, hadn’t he? That she wouldn’t be alone.

  
  


The following morning Rey packs what little she owns into her knapsack, climbs aboard the Falcon, and sets course for Tatooine.

  
  


*

A wave of sweltering heat hits Rey as soon as she disembarks. She squints against the brightness of the twin suns, currently at their highest position in the sky.

  
  


Tatooine is reminiscent of Jakku in many ways. It’s quiet here, on the outskirts, almost disconcertingly so. She forces herself to persevere despite the stirrings of unease in her gut.

  
  


All the dwellings look practically identical out here, but she can instinctively tell when she has reached her destination. The echoes of multi-generational grief are so loud and overwhelming here that they bring her to her knees. Her hand goes to her chest, fingers splaying wide over her chest as she struggles to catch her breath. Tears prick at the back of her eyes. Her knees burn in the sun-scorched sand.

  
  


It’s not at all what she was expecting.

  
  


This place, she quickly realizes, is nothing more than a burial ground. The sickening stench of smoke and burnt flesh still lingers in the air, somehow, despite all the time that has passed. She can’t quite tell if it’s real, or part of the Force-induced hallucination.

  
  


“What are you doing here, Rey?”

  
  


She gasps at the sudden intrusion, hurriedly getting to her feet and whipping around to find a blue-limned figure watching her, his expression caught somewhere between concern and curiosity.

  
  


“Luke.”

  
  


“There’s nothing for you here, Rey.” He sounds adamant. 

  
  


A part of her wants to leave this place immediately. But she is not easily deterred, and so she stays firmly rooted to the spot.

  
  


“This is where it all began, isn’t it?” Rey murmurs as if he hadn’t spoken. “The Skywalkers.”

  
  


Luke’s lips twitch into a wry smile. “Not exactly _here_ , but yes, our family’s origins can be traced back to Tatooine. But that doesn’t explain why _you’re_ here.”

  
  


Rey doesn’t speak, casting her gaze out to the horizon.

  
  


“This is about Ben,” Luke guesses.

  
  


He takes her continued silence as confirmation.

  
  


“I can’t reach him,” she confesses. “I’ve been trying, but it’s—it’s like he doesn’t exist in the Force anymore. I don’t understand. Before, I could always sense him, but now… now there’s nothing from him.” 

  
  


Rey frowns. 

  
  


“But I can commune with you.” There’s a frustrated, almost petulant edge to her tone. “And Leia.” And just about every other Jedi.

  
  


“The Force works in mysterious ways,” Luke offers. Rey huffs, finding his statement frustratingly vague. She sits down by the entrance of the Lars homestead, heedless of the hot sand. 

  
  


“We are—” She swallows, “— _were_ a dyad in the Force. That means something, doesn’t it? It _has_ to mean something. After he… he gave his life for me, I thought maybe our connection would live on, in some way. That I would be able to feel his presence. Or that he would come back, like you, like Leia.”

Rey sighs.

  
  


“Then I thought that maybe if I came here, I—”

  
  


“—would be able to reach him?”

  
  


She glances up at Luke, suddenly feeling stupid. “Yes.”

  
  


They’re both silent for a moment. Luke watches her carefully, like he’s unwilling to leave her without supervision.

  
  


“I won’t stop,” Rey suddenly declares. She’s not sure whether she’s trying to convince Luke, or herself. “I can’t. I… I need him. All my friends have found belonging. And I… I’m not whole without him.” 

  
  


Rey gets to her feet with a newfound determination. “I need you to show me. There has to be a way to contact him somehow. To feel his presence.” 

  
  


Luke suddenly looks a lot more unsure than he had a moment earlier. “Rey, if you can’t reach him despite your best efforts, then there must be a reason for that. And I think we can both agree that out of the two of us, he is far more likely to want to make contact with you.”

  
  


Her jaw clenches. 

  
  


“There are certain methods, aren’t there? Ways of… bringing people back,” she blurts out.

  
  


Luke’s expression darkens. He looks like he did that stormy night on Ahch-To, when he had discovered her communing with Ben in the hut. 

  
  


He’s afraid, she realizes.

  
  


“That is not the way, Rey. I understand that you’re hurting, but give it time. You _will_ find a way to reach Ben, if that’s what the Force wants. But not like this. Don’t give into that temptation, Rey. It will lead you to a place you can’t come back from.”

  
  


She knows what he’s referring to. Only…there had been no darkness in Ben when he had revived her, willingly trading his life for hers. When she’d reached for his hand, she sensed the light, so bright that it had tasted like the sweetest fruit on her tongue. 

  
  


Love, she thinks. She had felt his love for her.

  
  


“Trust in the Force, Rey.” 

  
  


She does.

  
  


*

Despite her initial reluctance, Rey eventually settles on Tatooine. Not permanently, perhaps, but for the time being. 

  
  


Unlike Lothal, Tatooine is hostile and barren, with little to no distractions. This is where she will finish constructing her saberstaff, she decides.

  
  


Indeed, her progress is impressive. In the days since she made planetfall, she has gone from having salvaged parts scattered around her makeshift workstation, to having an almost fully constructed saber. The crystal is proving to be the most challenging element. The casing and hilt had been almost downright enjoyable to create. Inserting the crystal, however, requires not only precision, but also a great deal of patience.

  
  


It’s surprisingly easy to settle into a routine here. She grew up as a child of the desert. Perhaps a part of her will always belong there.

  
  


Rey moves to secure all the windows in her new temporary home as soon as she feels the first stirrings of an oncoming sand storm. She knows from experience that they are vicious, dangerous things, brief but leaving destruction in their wake.

  
  


Which is why she’s so surprised to find a figure in the distance, barely visible over the swirl of sand. She blinks, thinking that perhaps she is imagining things, but moments later, she catches another glimpse of that same figure. 

  
  


Something kicks up under her ribs, some sense of duty and urgency. Pulling her hood over her head, she sets out to offer the wandering stranger shelter from the storm. Jedi or no, it’s a decent thing to do.

  
  


She squints against the flurry of particles, the wind growing stronger with every passing minute. Her feet ache from her sandy trek, but still she continues on her way, determined to reach the stranger and guide them to safety.

  
  


Rey’s heart starts hammering against her ribcage as she draws nearer, the figure’s blurred outline beginning to resemble a familiar silhouette with every step she takes. She can just about make out a tall, broad-shouldered form, milky pale skin, and a shock of black hair, whipping wildly in the wind.

  
  


Still unconvinced that it’s not a dream-memory, or a visage, or some other trick, she rushes forward to meet him. She _runs_ , wind and sand be damned, until she collides with him and—

  
  


She reaches out to touch him, if only to prove something to herself. He’s solid beneath her fingertips. 

  
  


“Ben,” she gasps out. 

  
  


He slumps against her before she can say anything else.

  
  


*

  
  


Rey calls on the Force, summoning all the strength she can muster up, and somehow manages to haul Ben back to the Lars homestead before the worst of the storm hits. The shutters tremble in the windows. 

  
  


As carefully as possible, she lays him on the bed she has been calling her own for the better part of a week, and immediately reaches for her canteen. 

  
  


“Here, drink,” she urges him, touching it to his dry, cracked lips. How long has he been out there? Where has he come from? How—just _how_ is any of this even possible?

  
  


Ben drinks eagerly, and she lets him, until he decides he’s had enough. Rey tucks the now-empty canteen away without taking her eyes off him, too afraid that if she looks away, he’ll disappear, like he always does in her dreams.

  
  


She leans closer when he opens his mouth, mumbling something unintelligible. His fingers brush against the inside of her wrist, feather-light.

  
  


“I’m here,” she tells him. 

  
  


_Stars_ , the way he looks at her, even in his half-delirious state. He licks his lips and curves them into a smile with some effort.

  
  


“I told you I’d come back for you, didn’t I?”

  
  


Rey swears her heart skips a beat. There’s a shocking familiarity to his words. She’s heard them before, she’s sure, at a different time and in a different place.

  
  


“That was you?” Her voice is barely above a whisper. “That voice in my dreams, years ago…It was you all along.”

  
  


She shakes her head in disbelief, trying but failing to make sense of it all.

  
  


“But I thought you… I saw you…I felt you—” 

  
  


“We’re a dyad, Rey,” he reminds her. His voice is still hoarse, but determination shines in his dark eyes. “One cannot exist without the other.”

  
  


The storm rages on outside, but neither of them pays it any mind.

  
  


*

Ben recuperates over the next few days. He’s quieter than usual, occasionally offering up some advice regarding the construction of her lightsaber, but not revealing much beyond that.

  
  


Rey finds she doesn’t mind. She’s curious, naturally, about how he returned, how he found his way back to her, but she figures he’ll tell her when he’s ready, and that’s good enough for her.

  
  


He’s very attentive, though. She swears his eyes never leave her face, like maybe he’s afraid to lose her, too.

  
  


“What is it, Ben?” she asks eventually. He’s mulling over something—she can tell by the way he purses his lips. She doesn’t even need to prod at the bond for that.

  
  


As he started to regain his strength, she discovered she could still _feel_ him, like she used to. The bond hasn’t faded away, and it certainly hasn’t been severed, it’s just been… inactive. 

  
  


“Why Tatooine?” he asks from his perch on the bed.

  
  


Rey sighs. “It can’t be that bad if it brought you back to me, right?”

  
  


“I would’ve found you anywhere, Rey,” he counters. “I wasn’t trying to reach this place, I was trying to reach _you_.”

  
  


Rey carefully sets her lightsaber down, and turns to face him fully. She can tell he’s not finished yet.

  
  


“This is a wasteland, Rey. Even my uncle wanted nothing more than to flee this planet. I don’t often find myself agreeing with him, but in this instance…” He heaves a deep sigh.

  
  


Rey moves from her workstation, coming to sit beside Ben on the edge of the bed. Her hand rests by his, fingers not quite touching, but close enough to, if he chose to bridge the minute distance between them. 

  
  


“You’re wasted on a place like this, Rey,” Ben murmurs. “Is that what you really want? To stay here?”

  
  


She bristles, a little. “I’m not sure. I haven’t decided yet.”

  
  


A shiver runs down her spine as he lifts a hand, bringing it towards her face. For a moment she thinks he’s going to touch her cheek, but his hand moves further, reaching behind her. 

  
  


“What are you doing?” she asks breathlessly as his long, slender fingers disappear somewhere between her three buns. 

  
  


He loosens them, one by one, leaving her chestnut hair cascading down her shoulders in unruly waves. It’s a little longer than it had been the last time he saw her. She hadn’t made the effort to cut it since.

  
  


Ben lets his hand fall back down to his side. Rey swears she sees the tips of his ears redden.

  
  


“The war is over. You don’t have to punish yourself—”

  
  


“I am _not_ punishing myself by being here,” she protests.

  
  


“Then why? Because this is familiar? Because it’s all you know?” He doesn’t sound angry, despite her outburst. 

  
  


Rey glances away. 

  
  


“I was waiting,” she says finally.

  
  


“For your parents.” He nods, slowly. “And now for me.”

  
  


Rey’s eyes settle on Ben’s fingers, fitting neatly into the spaces between hers. 

  
  


“I came back for you, Rey. There’s nothing to wait for anymore. The future could be bright, if you let it be.” 

  
  


“ _Our_ future,” Rey amends, leaning in to tentatively press her lips against his.

Ben’s answering smile is nothing short of beatific.


End file.
